Greeting Cadence

The guy who works the front door at the building where I work has a heavy accent. I suppose that to certain ears I also have a heavy accent. I've been unable to have any meaningful communication with this guy for years. I can tell when he asks a question since he raises the lilt in his voice at the end of the sentence, but I don't know what he's really asking. Though in the past few weeks, we've finally established a cadence. I walk in and say "Hi," then he responds with something that sounds like, "Hey, what's the (indecipherable)." And I reply, "Yeah, man!" assuming my exuberance is more important than the content of my response. Things are really looking up between us.